Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 551

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 551: Epilogue 5: Eternity and Epilogue (6)

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Can't upload files to Cloud?

Startled by the sudden message, Han Suyeong checked her Stigma several times. However, it wouldn't work. It was as if the system's grace had vanished.

Her body had been feeling different for a while now. The body that had once felt as though it could fly anywhere was gradually growing heavier.

No way. No, wait.

She had thought this day might come someday, but it had arrived far sooner than expected.

[The Administration Bureau fable you possess has stopped telling its story.]

Suyeong still hadn't written the novel's final episode.

Furthermore, without the Cloud System, she wouldn't be able to transmit the manuscript even if she wrote it.

"Goddammit..."

Just then, someone flung open the hospital room door.

"Han Suyeong!"

The allies seemed to have realized something was wrong, too.

* * *

"There's no way at all? Really?"

"Not for now."

Devices powered by Mana were shutting down one after another. As a result, Lee Seolhwa's hospital was hurriedly replacing the power sources for its medical equipment.

"How's Kim Dokja?"

"Fortunately, there aren't any serious signs of abnormality."

The system's power had disappeared, but Dokja remained unchanged as he slept.

The boy slept quietly, neither alive nor dead. His other reincarnations throughout the worldlines would be reading the manuscript she had written.

"I couldn't update the final manuscript. If this keeps up..."

"Then the Oldest Dreams must not have read the final story."

At Sangah's words, Jihye and Jang Hayoung cried out one after another.

"Then what do we do? Isn't the final manuscript the most important part?"

"What about my side story?!"

"That's not what's important right now."

No one knew how many worldlines Yu Junghyeok had traveled through, but by now, a considerable number of worldlines would have caught up to the latest installment.

"Ah, the thing I hate most in the world is a novel going on hiatus..."

The novel's Final Chapter was something that had not yet happened to the Oldest Dreams. Naturally, they couldn't fully imagine a story that had yet to occur.

"What do we do? You said the final episode was the most important."

"There's still a way."

Gnawing at a finger, Suyeong looked up at the sky and said,

"There's one other person besides me who can edit the manuscript. All we can do now is trust him."

* * *

"The manuscript updates have stopped."

The manuscript had normally been updated about once a day. However, the updates had completely stopped around a month ago.

At first, he thought it was an error caused by frequent worldline travel. But when he checked, there wasn't even a login record.

[Captain, I think something is wrong.]

There were two hypotheses. One, Suyeong had found herself unable to write the manuscript. Two, Earth's system had finally shut down.

Neither possibility was welcome.

[The file is being automatically transmitted to synchronized worldlines.]

The latest installment had already been sent to other worldlines. Some of the worldlines that had begun serialization first had even posted hiatus notices. Unable to think of what came next, their flustered writers had declared a hiatus.

The situation was bad. At this rate, writers who had lost their composure might create and upload manuscripts Suyeong had never written.

[Captain, there isn't much time.]

Junghyeok looked down at his hands. Slowly, he clenched and unclenched his fists.

It wasn't as if there was no way.

If Suyeong was unable to write the manuscript, someone who could write it had to complete the ending.

[Attribute effect has been activated!]

[You can edit the manuscript in the Cloud System.]

[Editing a manuscript requires a large amount of Plausibility.]

Junghyeok reopened the eyes he had slowly closed.

* * *

Another two months passed after the system entered its extinction sequence.

The system, once broken, showed no sign of returning. The number of people able to hear system messages gradually dwindled, and Skills and Stigmas disappeared one by one. Even the voices of fables could no longer be heard.

―A passenger plane powered by a Mana engine has crashed over the eastern coast...

Exclusive items from the previous generation that had yet to be replaced were causing trouble as well.

"Ah, I told them to replace those things!"

Jeong Huiwon finally lost her temper as she watched the news screen floating before her.

Suyeong asked, "Who went over there?"

"Jihye and the kids. They're still weak, but they can still use their Stigmas..."

The two watched the rescue scene through the live news. On the screen were Jihye, Lee Gilyeong, and Shin Yuseong. Jihye's Turtle Ship and Yuseong's Chimera Dragon were much smaller than before.

"The waves are too high."

The injured were being rescued one by one, but the surging waves were growing fiercer.

The Chimera Dragon and Turtle Ship staggered.

The rescue operation continued through the terrible weather, but it wasn't going smoothly.

Unable to watch any longer, Suyeong rose from her seat.

"Call Yu Sangah right now and have a helicopter ready. They can't handle this alone."

"I already did, but because of the storm..."

Damn it. Suyeong cursed and gathered her things.

―Breaking news. An unidentified flying object that appeared after piercing the atmosphere near the eastern coast...

Something was flying through the sky beyond the dark clouds on the screen. A burst of light came from far out at sea alongside a thunderous roar. Drones that had flown through the storm were broadcasting footage of the nearby waters in real time.

The outline of a flying object emerged through the white spray. Someone rose from within the capsule-shaped Ark.

"Yu Junghyeok?"

* * *

The moment they saw the news, Suyeong and the allies rushed to the East Sea.

―All injured parties have been rescued safely with the help of an extraterrestrial being...

―The extraterrestrial in question has been identified as the terrorist who left Earth two years ago...

Breaking news reports kept appearing.

After waiting at the pier for some time, they spotted rescue vessels approaching from afar.

Jihye's Turtle Ship stood at the center of the formation. Jihye and the children waved. Behind them stood a man looking their way.

"You...!"

He looked unfamiliar. His face hadn't changed much, but patches of his shaggy hair had turned white.

"It's been a long time."

Suyeong hesitated over what to say, then snapped without meaning to.

"What about your mission? Why are you back already?"

She knew she shouldn't have said that. The years Junghyeok had endured couldn't be reduced to words like that. Junghyeok said,

"I had no choice but to return."

"Oppa!"

Yu Mia ran over from behind and threw herself into Junghyeok's arms. He quietly held her as she cried without end.

Suyeong watched them for a moment before asking, "Who's that you brought with you?"

The girl behind Junghyeok poked her head out.

"What the hell... You still don't recognize me."

The girl sighed deeply and muttered as if she were sick of it.

"Baat."

* * *

Yu Sangah personally drove the limousine to pick the allies up. While Seolhwa gave Junghyeok a checkup during the trip, he explained what had happened: leaving Earth, drifting through worldlines, receiving help from Outer Gods, meeting Biyoo in the Dark Stratum, and finally completing his journey around the worldlines.

"You had no choice but to return because you ran out of fable energy?"

"That's right."

The system's extinction had apparently affected Junghyeok in space as well. The worst possible situation had come to pass.

"How long were you even in space?"

"Are you curious?"

Something like a faint smile appeared and vanished from Junghyeok's lips. Suyeong frowned at the expression, which was so unlike him.

"Are you smiling?"

"Don't worry. I visited every worldline I could reach. With Biyoo's help, I set up real-time links, so the writers there should be uploading the novel in sequence."

The allies, who had been listening in, breathed sighs of relief.

But the most important question remained.

"You sent all of it? What about the final manuscript? What happened to the final episode?"

"The manuscript you never sent me?"

"Yes! The manuscript you could edit!"

Suyeong finally lost her temper.

"You had the Writer Attribute, too. If you'd been reading my novel all along, you must've known how it was supposed to end. Right? You wrote it in my place, right?"

Junghyeok quietly watched her.

After a long silence, he turned his gaze out the window.

Suyeong's voice trembled.

"You... You couldn't have―"

"Do you think I should have written it?"

"What kind of bullshit is that? Of course you should have..."

"Do you truly believe it is right to make a hope that never came true for us into the ending?"

Suyeong froze. Junghyeok continued.

"Han Suyeong. No matter how hard we try, that story is different from the life we lived."

"You think I don't know that..."

She knew. More than anyone, she knew.

The sense of distance she felt whenever another sentence accumulated. No matter how precise the words she used, no matter how much thought went into each phrase, it was impossible to fully contain the time they remembered in the story. It was impossible to recreate Dokja, who had once lived in this world.

That was why she had divided the novel into versions in the first place. Because she wanted, somehow, somehow, to reach the Dokja they remembered.

"It wasn't as though I didn't try. I tried to write the final episode using the fables I remembered, just as you did. But..."

To recreate Dokja, the fables of the allies gathered. One fragment, then two. The sentences they remembered piled up, becoming a fictional Dokja.

「You want to hear stories about my child when he was young?」

「The Dokja ahjussi I remember was...」

「Hyung really did that back then! It's true!」

One percent of Dokja, then two percent.

Many people remembered Dokja. The Dokja created from those memories might have become ninety-nine percent of Dokja.

"Even if Kim Dokja came back to life through the story we made, could you truly believe he was Kim Dokja?"

The one percent of Dokja they didn't remember. Where in this universe would the Dokja they didn't remember remain?

"Even before his soul scattered, Dokja was the Oldest Dream. Haven't you ever found it strange? Why didn't he imagine his own happiness?"

Suyeong answered almost convulsively.

"Even the Oldest Dream can't imagine the world however he wants. Most of a dream comes from the unconscious!"

"Then Dokja's unconscious must have believed this ending was right."

A being who had never once imagined his own happiness. That was the Dokja they knew.

"I know! I know what kind of bastard Dokja is. Why do you think I wrote this story? Why did I..."

Something was falling onto the tops of her feet, drop by drop.

She wanted to say something. She wanted to scream, grab Junghyeok by the collar, and shake him. But she couldn't.

Junghyeok's voice, tinged with long exhaustion, drifted toward her.

"To save someone."

Suyeong lifted her head.

"Your story allowed me to survive until now."

Suyeong glared at him through reddened eyes.

"That's not something I wanted to hear from someone like you."

The industrial complex came into view in the distance.

Their home. The place where everyone in Kim Dokja Company had once lived together. A place created by someone's impossible dream. Everyone looked at it.

Sangah, gripping the steering wheel, said, "So that's what happened. Thank you for telling us, Junghyeok-ssi."

No one cried. No one blamed Junghyeok for his choice.

It wasn't because their sadness had faded. Perhaps they had simply become that much stronger.

It wasn't only Junghyeok.

As they wrote stories, read them again, and hoped someone would read those stories, the allies found the strength to live through the time they had left. The courage not to collapse, even when the miracle they had dreamed of disappeared before their eyes.

Now, simply knowing someone beyond that vast universe was reading their story was enough for them to keep living.

Jihye asked, "But was the novel popular?"

"It wasn't bad."

"Do you think the Dokja ahjussis liked it?"

"Hey, you gloomy bastard! Have you ever seen a reincarnated Dokja-hyung? What was he like?"

Questions poured from the allies like a waterfall, as if they wanted to ask everything they had wondered about. Junghyeok answered.

"I have never seen a reincarnated Kim Dokja. But..."

Looking at the Kim Dokja statue passing outside the window, he continued.

"That bastard must have read this story. That's what it feels like."

"Dokja ahjussi must be annoyed. He couldn't see the ending again..."

Suyeong didn't know how the Kim Dokjas of other worldlines would remember this story's ending. Giving a story a good ending was as difficult as convincing a lover you were parting with to accept the reason for the breakup.

"What if the Dokja-ssis from other worldlines come storming over here?"

Someone murmured quietly, "I hope they do."

Deep silence fell over the allies after those words. Sangah turned on music through the speakers at just the right moment. An accompaniment fell like the sound of rain. No one looked at anyone else's face. It was the only courtesy they could offer each other now.

Within that heavy tenderness, Suyeong thought of the novel that must have been stored on her laptop.

A story without a final installment. From now on, no one would know how it ended. Yet perhaps the world needed stories like that sometimes.

"How about... we all live together again?"

At someone's voice, the allies raised their heads.

At last, Suyeong understood, too.

「This was the story Kim Dokja had given them.」

The allies had regained their daily lives, and Junghyeok had returned.

Kim Dokja Company's adventure ended here.

The ending the person they loved had wanted to see was finally complete.

Suyeong suddenly turned to Junghyeok.

"So, did you find out what your ■■ is?"

"Not yet. But now, I think it may not matter if I never find out..."

That was when an odd sensation swept over Suyeong.

Tsst-tsst.

「.......................」

It was a sound that lingered at the edge of her hearing like a faint song. The moment Sangah turned off the speakers, Biyoo, sitting in the front seat, changed.

[Baat?]

Biyoo had transformed into a large plush doll.

It was impossible. Before getting into the car, Biyoo had clearly said her transformation function had been paralyzed by the system's extinction.

"Huh?"

The words echoing through the air grew clearer. It was unmistakably the sound of a fable telling its story.

"What? The system should be broken."

Suyeong looked at Junghyeok.

He was looking back at her with the same look in his eyes.

[The fable King of a Kingless World begins its story again.]

Dazzling characters flowed in clusters through the sky outside the car windows.

It was a fable they knew well.

"Yu Sangah!"

Sangah slammed down on the accelerator.

Suyeong answered the phone ringing in her pocket. It was Aileen.

―Suyeong-ssi! Right now...!

The call was difficult to hear through all the noise around her.

[The fable Predictive Plagiarism begins its story again.]

The fables that had vanished with the system's extinction were streaming somewhere, one after another. Every one of them was a story that had ended long ago.

「Is a story truly over just because its writer stopped writing it?」

Suyeong looked up at the characters drifting through the air.

On their own, the characters had held no meaning. Yet one by one, they found their counterparts and connected.

"Broken Film Theory?"

The allies entered the industrial complex and got out of the limousine at once. They began to run. The fables they had accumulated, the fables they had told, brushed past them.

No one knew this story's ending.

No matter how hard they tried, Dokja would not return. Even if they created ninety-nine percent of Dokja, the one percent they couldn't fill would always remain.

But what if there was one person in the world who could fill that final one percent?

A being who held the characters scattered through the unconscious of that far-off universe.

"Suyeong-ssi! Over there!"

Seolhwa's hospital could be seen in the distance. The fables flowing calmly ahead guided them. The fables were gathering in the hospital ward they knew.

[The Great Fable Spring of the Demon Realm begins its story again.]

Suyeong thought.

If a writer didn't write, the ending of a story could not be created.

[The Great Fable Holy Flame That Devoured Myth begins its story again.]

But did that mean readers truly couldn't imagine that story's ending? Suyeong bit down hard on her lip. The story born from her hands. At the end of that story, a story she didn't know was continuing.

「If the moment ever came when someone's imagination overtook the writer's sentences.」

Her Skills and Stigmas had yet to fully return, so Suyeong quickly began gasping for breath. Junghyeok ran beside her, supporting her. Yuseong fell as she raced up the stairs, and the allies reached out their hands to pull her up.

[The Great Fable Season of Light and Darkness begins its story again.]

[The Great Fable Liberator of Forgotten Things begins its story again.]

The Great Fables they had accumulated were returning one by one.

The final, unnamed fable of Kim Dokja Company sang of an emotion no one had dared to name.

The wish for those separated long ago to become one again.

To grieve, rejoice, rage, and despair in another's place.

And in doing so, finally, to become someone else for them.

Someone was empathizing with their story. Through her ragged breaths, Suyeong thought and thought again.

「If only this story can save you.」

If you could recover even a little of your memories and remember us once more.

"It's over there!"

I will forever write the Final Chapter for you.

Gasping for breath, Suyeong arrived before the hospital room. At last, she stood in front of the room she had visited every day for the past four years.

The allies, who had raced up the stairwell a step behind, were watching her. Looking at them, Suyeong remembered the final paragraph of the ending she had failed to write.

「There are three ways to survive in a ruined world.」

Huiwon's voice rang out.

"Han Suyeong!"

The allies who had heard the news late, along with the other companions who had not gone to the East Sea, could be seen running outside the window.

「By now, I've forgotten a few, but one thing is certain.」

Suyeong's trembling hand grasped the doorknob.

She was afraid. What if there was nothing beyond this door?

What if all of this was nothing more than sweet fiction?

When she looked beside her, Junghyeok nodded.

「The fact is that you, who are reading this now, will survive.」

Whatever awaited them beyond this door, they were ready to see it now.

The door creaked open. Faint sunlight streamed through the wide-open window. The manuscript pages she had revised through the night scattered in the wind. Dazzling characters scattered everywhere.

The story she had failed to complete was there.

A sentence she had wanted to write someday, even if not now. Thinking of those words, Suyeong smiled like a fool.